


Destroyed By Global Warming

by kaulayau



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Cool Down Fic, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, F/M, M/M, Teen Angst, and meet every saturday to play dungeons and dragons (and various other tabletop RPGs), in which the majority of our robo characters are raunchy high school seniors, that attend an elite private school in northern detroit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-08 16:39:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15247455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaulayau/pseuds/kaulayau
Summary: Above all else, D&D is yours. The friendships you make around the table will he unique to you. The adventures you embark on, the characters you create, the memories you make — these will be yours. D&D is your personal corner of the universe, a place where you have free reign to do as you wish.(In which the robo gang are senior-year students at a wealthy school that are so bored they play tabletop RPGs on the weekend.)





	1. Lawful Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the summary is from the Preface in the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Guide, and the title is a line from Mitski’s amazing beautiful astounding bop, Nobody. Consider my sources cited, my dudes ;p
> 
> Thanks for reading!

“Markus, Markus, are you seeing this? Did they _just put up_ this Principal Kamski painting?” She traces her fingers over its gilded fame — and Markus feels morally obligated to push her wrists down. “This is art.” 

The painting’s been there since they were in seventh grade. He thinks she’s done this before, but with her, Markus can never be sure. “So... you think Principal Kamski’s art?” 

“No,” she says. “Principal Kamski is _daddy_.”

* * *

North just — unfolds her metal spoon — opens her thermos of mac and cheese (mac an’ cheese? Mac ‘n’ cheese?) and stares at him with the intent of Inigo Montoya to a six-fingered man. He should be scared. He should be scared out of her mind, because — she’s squinting, chin jut out and forward — but, like, he can’t tell if it’s because she’s thinking in his direction or because the sun’s straddled high above them. She’s plotting something. She’s _plotting_ something — almost as if she’s threatening him with a baseball bat —

And it’s obvious. Josh gapes at them, back and forth and back and forth — Simon unwraps his sandwich — but he’s nervous — he’s definitely nervous —

“North.” It’s up to him to fix this. “Do you want some fruit snack?” he asks her. The baseball bat to his head. “Because I’ve got fruit snack if you want it.” It’s like the baseball bat is hanging closer. “You usually take my fruit snack.”

She grins. Home run. “Markus sucked a _dick_.” Oh. Wait —

* * *

Everything is dead. “Why did you tell them that?” He shuts his locker, and for good measure, North slams her fist on its door. He sighs. “Now Simon’s mad I didn’t tell him first. You know how Simon gets when he’s mad.” She’s coughing into her fist. “And Josh doesn’t believe I’m vegetarian anymore.” She’s still coughing into her fist, with more gumption and gusto than before. “Besides, you know that’s not true. And you know I wouldn’t do such a thing.” 

He didn’t. He really, truly didn’t. And it’s making him sound like he did. Did he? No, he didn’t! God. God, this is bad. This is — God, help him.

She shrugs. The strap of her backpack is twisted on her shoulder. “Well.” She closes her eyes and wags her eyebrows.

Is she still holding the baseball bat? Why? He’s already been beaten to a bloody pulp. “I wouldn’t _, North._ You know that’s true.”

“ _Fuck_ , man, for real?” She elbows his gut, and he pretends that she didn’t knock the air out of him. “I mean, if you didn’t,  _I_ would. I _think_ I would. If he asked me to. He’s got — that _big dick energy_ , as they said in my day. And, like, he’s hot, but in like — an Ash-Ketchum default-character-customization-settings kind of way, you know — it’s like he didn’t even _think_ to use a sheet —”

Ash-Ketchum default-character-customization — “Don’t — why are you talking about him like that? You shouldn’t talk about — anyone like that.”

“Why not, Markus?” At every step, her clip-on uniform tie swishes. “It’s a complimentary thing.” She raises her hands halfheartedly, like a water gun is pointed to her forehead. “I’m just saying, if he was a bus, I’d definitely let him go to town —”

Oh, God, people must be staring at them — this hallway is full and bursting, anyway — “ _North_ —” he covers his face in what feels like empathetic shame —

“— but though I have chosen the life of hoe, I’m a _respectful_ hoe. He’s all yours.” She puts her hands down. She finally fixes the strap of her purple backpack. “Coaches don’t play the game, Markus. The court is in your favor. You have shot the basket, and now the game is set and match and — fucking, like — yours.”

He’s tired. He just took a physics test. “He doesn’t _belong_ to anyone, North.” He’s going to bump into someone if he keeps his hands over his face. 

She laughs, sharp and cackling — and he considers taking that risk. “Thanks for the reminder.” She slings his arm over his shoulders. Why is he letting her? “Hey. I have no idea why I did it. And I’m rather sorry.” Of course she is. “But I did tell you I was going to do it.” Did she? “This has been going on since, when, like, I don’t even know? They would have been hurt that _I_ knew and didn’t tell them, and you know _you_ would have never told _them_ until it was too late.”

Markus — hopes she enjoys the nuclear fallout. “You’re...” Yeah, maybe. Maybe. “I guess. But only a little.”

“They can’t be mad at you forever. They need you for group projects.” 

“You’re terrible.” 

“Hey, you know what — invite your boyfriend —”

That’s a disgusting word. And he suppose they’re meant to call each other that, now. But still, “It’s — he’s not my boyfriend, and you’re being —”

“Invite him to our game tomorrow! It’ll be fan-fucking- _tastic_.”

“I — I don’t know about that, North — like, he’ll have to make a character —”

“Ash-Ketchum default-character-customization, Markus.”

It’s almost twelve-fifty. “And everyone’s going to be there. I don’t want him to feel ostracized, and I don’t want the others to feel uncomfortable.” And the first bell hasn’t rung yet? “I’m pulling a deer into active hunting grounds.”

“Hey, we’re not _that_ bad. And by everyone — Kara’s coming, too, and she’ll mom him so hard that everyone will fucking love him.”

“ _What_ did you tell Kara?”

“Markus, focus.” Sometimes, he doesn’t understand her. “It’ll be fine. If you like him, we like him. It’s a given.” God — why is she looking at him like this? What is she trying to _do?_ She knows him dangerously well and he’s — “We’re all crazy about you, Markus. All the freshman roll up their skirts and talk about your eyes.” She puts on a voice. “Oh, my God, Markus! Oh, my God, his eyes! Oh, my God, bust a _nut!_ ”

“Oh, my — shh! North, we’re still — why are you —” they’re at North’s locker now. She drags her arm off of him to open it. She smiles at him, warm, and Markus just rolls his eyes. “You’re... crazy.” 

“And if you had any hair, I’d be ruffling it right now.” There goes the bell. “If he’s not your boyfriend, then — problem solved. There is none.” Her locker closes with a resonant _bang_. “Have fun at ‘tutoring’ later.”

* * *

They close the door, and something clatters on the ground. Then Connor, immediately, takes Markus’s hand and kisses all his fingers, one by one, gently, quickly, with his tongue —

He laughs. He can’t help but laugh. It’s just — Connor looks so earnest and diligent and — oh — he’s _ridiculous_ — 

And he stops. “What’s making you laugh, hmm?” He holds his hands on Markus’s waist — 

“N-nothing,” Markus says. Connor kisses all his freckles. All tongue. Just — tongue. He told him once that he liked doing that and Markus is just gonna kind of let him do it. “I’m being extremely — extremely serious.” It’s sloppy and it’s weird and it’s probably not accurate — but they’re copying the movies, here. Movies and all the uncomfortable young-adult novels from tenth grade. None of their textbooks are going to tell them how to do this right, so. There’s only one direction to follow.

“And I am accomplice to that seriousness, if you didn’t know already.” Connor moves and Markus just — yeah. “You’re still _laughing_ , Markus.”

He meets him at his lips. They’re chapped, but that’s barely reason to mind. “I mean, I — I — I like you? A lot, Connor.”

“Well — well, I — you’re not — that doesn’t excuse the fact that you’re —  _laughing_. That’s just — a thing.”

He’s probably losing it already. But that’s okay. “Does that make you upset at me?” 

Then — a smirk, quivering. Oh. Oh. Holy shit. “Y-yes? Yes, I —” Connor tilts his head —

“Wait. Sorry, sorry, um. Wait.” Something else clatters — it’s probably a broom. The janitors closet isn’t the most romantic place, but neither is the bathroom, or the library, or the courtyard, or anything else here, so. It’ll have to do for now. The janitor’s don’t use this one anyway, and they’ll blame it on senioritis. “Um.” What’s he doing. “Do — do you want to, like...” This is bad. “Do you wanna come over to my house on Saturday?” They’ve never been to each other’s houses before.

He seems to process this. “Oh.” Connor’s forehead wrinkles. “Oh, just the two of us, or —”

Shit. Where is he going with this? “Oh, no, like — you know North, kind of, I think, she’ll be there — and — and Kara from Computer Science — I’ve told you about Josh and Simon — yeah, I’m pretty sure I did — there’ll — well, I think that’s about it — ” 

Is he — disappointed? Markus doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything when it comes to this. “Okay. Okay, that sounds...” What? That sounds what? “I’ll — I’ll have to ask Hank, though...”

So maybe he’s just — “Did you tell Hank about us yet?”

He thinks about it. “No.” 

“What?” he says. “What, for real?” Aw. “He won’t — he won’t get mad at you. He’s, like, your dad. I mean, and, like — nothing really matters anyway, and when I told _Carl_ I was dating someone, he was basically like —” maybe this is pressuring him or something. Maybe this isn’t what he should say. “You know.” 

Connor wraps his arms around him and puts his chin on Markus’s shoulder. “I know.” He breathes. Markus can feel it against his chest. “I just...” He thinks he gets it. “What are we going to be doing on Saturday, anyway?” 

Markus pulls away. Just for a second. “I’ll give you a character sheet.” 

* * *

When they exit the janitor’s closet, there’s someone at the door, pacing. Oh, God. Oh, God, wait — what —

“I’m sorry — I’m sorry oh, my God, I’m sorry — I didn’t — North said that you’d be somewhere in the B Hall after class goes out — for tutoring, or — shit, I’m sorry, dude, I wasn’t trying to do anything, I —”

Oh. “No, no, Simon, wait.” He is very particular shade of pink. Oh, God, he probably thought — North, why in the world — oh, God oh, God wait — he’s gotta — _North_ — 

“You said you were gonna...” Simon makes an indecipherable face. “You said you’d give me a ride home?” 

Shit. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, let’s —” he’s still holding Connor’s hand. He has to let go of Connor’s hand. “My car’s up in the front.” God. God. God. 

“Okay.” He turns, hesitant. “Um, bye, Connor?” 

Connor remembers to wave. Markus remembers to fix his collar. 

* * *

He glances around and makes his bearings. Kara and North are at the window — Kara’s sitting on the sill and North is sitting on the floor — they’re scrolling down their phones, respectively — “Like, why are all your streaks just pictures your sister?” North asks, tapping Kara on the shin. “I mean, I’m not judging or anything, really, I’m just, like, really curious.” 

“It’s a long story,” Kara tells her.

North puts her cheek on Kara’s lap. “We have all the time in the world.” 

“Well...” Kara looks up. “Markus? Is everyone here? Can we start?” 

“And is your brother getting wasted in the — fucking — basement or something?” North asks. “I never see that beautiful asshole around anymore.”

Well. “We don’t even _have_ a basement —”

Kara’s trying not to smile, he can tell. Yeah. He and North are an odd pod of peas. “Hey, where’d... Josh and Simon go? I didn’t notice that they left.”

“They went to get the dice — like, yeah, not everyone’s here,” he says, “we’re waiting on... Connor.” He said he’d come. He literally texted at five a.m. and said that he could go. 

North taps Kara on the shin again. “That’s his boyfriend.”

“Ooh.”

“He’s —” Markus isn’t even going to try. “I don’t know. He said he’d come.” 

North crawls off of Kara and pushes the blinds apart. “Maybe... Oh, hey, look, is that him?” 

Markus hurries to join them. “That’s... him.” He’s tall, and he’s got a beanie on. Markus can see that from here, even. 

“Where?” Kara looks out the window with her. “Oh, I know him, I think! I’ve met him before, on the track. It was kind of weird. Wait, I think I have Comp Sci with him.”

“Isn’t he cute, Kara?” says North. “In an Ash-Ketchum, default-character-customization kind of way.”

“Yeah, kind of.” Kara leans forward. “Should you go and let him in, Markus?”

He weighs his options. “I kind of don’t want to talk to his dad for some reason. That’ll be... really awkward.”

“Ha ha, Markus, it’s like your boyfriend’s in trouble. Or wait, no, he’s just talking.”

“Oh,” goes Kara, “is that his dad?”

Hank. “Yeah,” says Markus. “That’s his dad.” 

Kara nods. “He seems... like a nice person.”

“He drives a truck and he’s wearing stoner clothes.” North pulls the blinds down further.

“Stoner clothes?” Kara asks.

Markus shrugs. “I’ve never actually met him.” But Connor paints him in a positive light.

“Well, Connor’s pretty _nice_ , too, from what I gather. He’s gotta inherit it from some kind of dominant allele or whatever.” North looks at Markus wit’s a tease on her face. “His dad’s kind of attractive. I’m just saying, I’m bi bi bi and I’m gonna swing by by by.”

Kara seemed appalled. “That’s Connor’s _father_.”

“He’s like a Dream Daddy NPC.” 

“North,” says Markus, “you’re disgusting.”

She brushes the tips of her braid on her face like she’s cross-hatching. “Wouldn’t he look really good in a ponytail, though? Think — Principal Kamski style.” 

“You’re...” Dear God, not Kara, too. “I mean, kind of.”

“You’ve infected her, North.” They watch Hank pat Connor’s arm, enter his elderly car, and drive away. In that order. “Yeah, I’m gonna go say hi to him.” This is stalking. “Better than this.” 

North pushes him. “Go do that. I’ve got Kara with me.”

* * *

He goes and does.

* * *

He hopes Connor will be fine with the others. In the meantime, he’s getting graph paper — and Simon and Josh forgot where they put the dice last time — and Josh raises his hand. “Permission to speak, Markus, Game Master, sir?” 

“Uh, permission granted?” That’s strange.

“I’m gonna raid your pantry for our customary snacks.”

“Go, dude. Be free.” 

“And, like, while cheese crackers are cool and all, well, now that _you’re_ not vegetarian —” he suppresses a grin —

Markus puts his palm in the air. Josh might be the sanest of all of them, but that still doesn’t save him from anything.

 “I’m vegetarian, Josh.”

“Because —”

“Josh. I’m vegetarian.”

And they look at each other, just for a second — and spit out laughing. 

* * *

It’s _their_ table — his, North’s, Simon’s, and Josh’s, with the occasional added bonus of others — Kara joined them in their last campaign — and Connor’s this time around — their unified, specified, all-important table — it’s in front of the bookshelves and behind the aquarium — and they’ve been meeting here since sophomore year, without failure or interruption. They were supposed to do their homework here, but, well. Things don’t always go exactly as planned. (Carl says he minds, but he’s never stopped them.) 

They take their seats — North next to Kara, Kara next to Simon, Simon next to Josh, Josh next to Connor, Connor next to Markus. It’s a temporary set-up. They’re bound to switch around.

“So I told you guys on the group chat —” shit. Shit, Connor wasn’t in the group chat. “So, like, we’re putting a spin on the conventions of D and D.” (D an’ D? D n’ D? D n’ D.) We’re using the set-up, but it’s going to be — something else — in the sci fi realm.”

General whooping. Contemplative Connor. Then, North. “Yeah, what the _fuck_ is up with that? Why are we still using the same rulebook? Why can’t you  just — fucking — buy a sci fi tabletop RPG? You’re soiling the name of D n’ D!”

Okay. “Hear me out —”

“There’s rules and there’s traditions — what the fucking fuck? Like, that’s not how you play fucking Dungeons n’ Dragons —”

He lets her have that, but like, “I know it’s unconventional —”

“Unconventional my fucking ass — we’re gonna fucking Blade Runner twenty-forty-nine — fucking Ghost In The Shell — fucking I, Robot — this is a fan-fucking mess —” 

She’s killing Kara. Kara’s _guffawing_. She’s broken Kara. Josh is quickly following suit — Simon looks half amused and half ashamed— Markus just kind of tries to sway her — “Hey, if you just give it a chance —”

“Like you’re only doing this to fulfill your fucking weaboo fantasies with all the fucking big-ass titty anime girls with fucking cat ears and jumbo swords —”

“He doesn’t even _watch_ anime!” says Josh. “Every time we watch Naruto, he turns it off!”

Simon ducks his head. “Oh, my _God_ — North, you’re amazing, but _why_ —”

“Maybe —”  Kara's getting out of her seat — “I can't even take this for real, this is just — _gah_ — God —” all their voices overlap on him —

“You’re fucking missing the fucking point of Dungeons n’ Dragons!” North sounds like she’s screeching and raw —

Then — “Make up — oh, my God, North, make up your own campaign! If you’re so upset — then — oh, my God! Why do you hate my idea?”

“Oh, no.” God. “It’s a cool idea. I’m just — voicing my opinion.”

“North,” says Josh, “what the _fuck._ ”

“You’re doing _great_.” Baseball bat. She’s got that baseball bat. “It’s outside-the-box.”

Connor’s gripping his chair.

They’re gonna scare him away. God. This was a terrible, cruel, sick idea.

Markus will deal with it. He _is_ dealing with it. “Okay, so — can I go? Can — can I go?”

“You’re doing fucking amazing, Markus,” North promises, “and I implore you to go.”

It’s fine, then. It’ll be fine. This will work. The table is still intact. “So... we’ll be following all your storylines, which will all intertwine with each other directly. There can be perma-death, so make up more than one character, just in case.”

“All right. All right, that’s — that’s cool. That’s pretty cool.”

He treads slowly. “And we’re switching dungeon masters periodically —”

“Wait, wait, hold up —”

* * *

“I’ll be a cleric,” Kara says, “or, well, an AX400? Kind of? AX400, that’s what one of those things are called in this version, right? Or is that the race?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of the race.” Markus thinks about the guidelines. They’ll figure it all out once they’ve started. “I found it off the internet.” 

“Okay, then. I’m a cleric — AX400 android — and — I’m a guy, too — and my name is Deal. I was purchased by some guy named... yeah, we’ll figure it out. He’s got a daughter named Jill, who I want to protect. I’ve got light-colored hair, like, blonde or white maybe, and it brushes against my ears. I wear the — what’s the company in this campaign called?” 

“CyberLife’s, like, our main villain.”

“So I have on the CyberLife outfit, with the neon stuff on it.” 

He jots it down. “Who’s next?”

“I’ll go,” says North. “My name is Luv, female, and I’m a motherfucking barbarian. Motherfucking Chaotic Neutral. Or, like, the equivalent of it. My backstory and motivation are, as of yet, shrouded in mystery. Actually, no, my motivation is to kick ass. But my backstory, well. It involves strip clubs and murder. Lots of it. We’ll get into it... once I’m Game Master. If we’re doing that, then I’m keeping the suspense.” They hum their assent. “I’ve got, like, this long, long braid —”

“Like you?” Simon points out. 

“More like Khal Drogo, minus the bells.” 

Simon chuckles. “Nice.”

“Thanks.” She gestures to him. “What about — what about you?”

“I’m also mysterious,” he says. “No one knows where I come from. I’m, like — my name is Rachael, and I’m a wizard, but I prefer to talk my way out of things — so I’m gonna be putting some points in Charisma and maybe some in Intelligence, yeah. PL600. That’s, like —”

“It’s, like, the family assistant thing,” Markus tells him. 

“Then yeah. I’m that. I’m — what’s it called?” 

“Deviant.”

“I’ve already been deviated, and I have, like, that awesome half-shaved haircut, like, you know what I’m talking about?” They know what he’s talking about. “And it’s light brown. There’s wires sticking out all glowy on the side of my head that’s shaved, because all humans are bad in this universe, I guess. And I can totally tell the future, too. Plus I have these — really bright and milky black-orb eyes.”

Josh interrupts — “How — how are they bright and milky at the same —”

“We’ll get to it. Your turn now.” 

“Oh. Okay. So, like, I’m a Lawful Good, uh, PJ500 android. I was a teacher, but then I got beat up by a bunch of, like, drunk college students, so I ran away. My motivation is to, like, find myself or something. My name’s Leon, and I’m a dude. You guys know I’m not that great at thinking up appearances, but, like, I guess I’m curly-haired this time, and I rolled for a trinket, so — I have this necklace that has a picture in it, and no one can take it off me. It’s cool.” He seems satisfied. “Markus?”

“Um, I’ll be an RK200 rogue-thing named Ava, True Neutral. I was propositioned to take care of an elderly writer woman until I was accused of her death. So I’m on the run.”

“Are you gonna have lit eyes?” says North.

“Definitely. They’re brown.” Kind of like Connor’s? “Super amazing chocolate-brownie stuff.” 

“Oh, shit.” She kicks her feet up on her chair. "So that’s — wait, no, Connor! Connor, we need your character.”

He hasn’t spoken a word since they got here, really. Markus finds his leg bouncing. “I guess…” He can do it. He can do it. “I’m the android sent by CyberLife to investigate all the — deviant?”

“Deviant,” Kara finishes for him.

“Deviant activity. My name is K.”

No response. Then North — “Can you do the coin tricks?”

Josh opens his mouth. “Yeah, yeah, the coin tricks! I think I’ve seen you do it before, once. I was like, ‘Whoa.’ I didn’t know who you were back then, though.”

It’s as if he can’t focus between them. Shit. Connor’s not great with people — “Uh, yeh-yeah. Yeah, K can do the coin tricks.”

‘K’?” asks North. 

Markus is praying that she won’t be weird. He prays that she doesn’t mention Ash Ketchum, or default character customization, or anything else —

“Okay, K,” she says. Thank God. “That’s badass. All of this. Fucking badass.”

* * *

“The building is sterile and bright,” Markus starts. “Almost too bright — as if it hasn’t gotten word of the situation inside of it. K, as you pass your signature coin between your fingers, you’re waiting for the elevator to reach the top, penthouse floor. When you reach it, you’re bathed in light — bisexual light —” as North might put it — it makes her smile — “blue, pink, purple. You hear —  the chatter of footsteps and walkie-talkies.” World building. More world building. He has to make it real. “When you look to your left, there’s an aquarium, like the one you see here — a fish has fallen out of it, flopping on the ground helplessly —”

“Save the fish.” 

“Wh-what?”

“ _Can_ I save the fish? Is that allowed?”

Markus doesn’t know what to say. But Kara seems to. “Everything is allowed in tabletop RPGs.”

“I mean, _I_ would save the fish,” says Simon, shifting in his seat.

Josh grins. “You’re a fucking monster if you don’t save the fish.”

“Yeah,” says Markus, “but, like —” what is he even _doing_ — bad idea —

“Let him save the fucking fish!” North slams her fists on the table. “Roll the die, Connor. The d20.”

Connor rolls his die.

He looks up. “Nineteen?”

Everyone cheers. Connor seems confused. 

“Markus,” goes North, “it’s a fucking nineteen. Let him save the fucking fish.”

So he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying to be hip with the kids with all my pop-culture mostly-robot-media references but the continuity of this alternate universe is hanging from a string
> 
> Like what even is Blade Runner in this thing. What is VA11-Hall A. What is Ghost In The Shell. What is Ex Machina. What is anything
> 
> Ajsjskkdkdodwo XDDDD
> 
> I won’t be updating this quite as much as I am KMJ (read it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14921868/chapters/34566705) and enjoy my entirely selfless plug), but I will be checking in every once in a while to cool down after writing all my senseless angst 
> 
> D&D masters, if my lingo is off, correct my lingo, my excellent dudes
> 
> And if you want to play D&D, here’s [the rulebook!](http://orc-news.ru/dnd5eng.pdf) http://orc-news.ru/dnd5eng.pdf
> 
> [Talk to me on tumblr!](https://kaulayauwrites.tumblr.com/) I’d love to share headcanons and answer questions (more selfless plugs)
> 
> See y’all the next time around
> 
> Gotta edit


	2. Neutral Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No matter what I do
> 
> Writing “Simon says” will be unavoidable

Josh’s mouth hangs so low it hits the ground. “ _D-D-D-D-Duh —_ ” every syllable is in fast succession — “ _Daniel?_ So you’re calling this NPC Daniel, like the British kid that looks like Simon?”

“How —” Simon pulls his sleeves over his hands — “how do we know that he’s British? We — we — we don’t know if he has an accent or anything. We’ve never been able to actually confirm that. I mean, he’s _my_ doppelgänger, and _I’m_ not British —”

Kara taps her fingers on the table. “Daniel, Emma, and Captain Allen are all very common American names.”

“You’re totally right, but isn’t this the future though?” says North. “With robots and shit? Why can’t the SWAT team guy be named Captain Plasma Beam? Or Captain Falcon? And the kid should be Battlestar Galactica or Chun-Li or Princess Leia or something.”

“That’s not how the future works,” Simon tells her.

She sits up. “What, have you _seen_ it?” 

“Who’s — who’s Daniel?” asks Connor. “The — the deviant thing, or —”

Markus nods. “Uh, yeah, that’s what I named the deviant — but he’s also, like, this kid in Simon’s AP Bio class that looks just like him — oh, my God, I completely forgot about that —”

“Now,” goes Josh, “now it’s just weird, because — I’m gonna think that all these fucking characters look like — British fucking Simon —”

Simon’s pulling his arms out of his sweater — “Literally, how do we know he’s British —”

Kara takes a cheese cracker from the paper plate in the center of their table. “Markus, maybe you should just change his name. That’ll fix things.”

Okay. “Um — okay, yeah, fine, his name is — Staniel.” God. God, he’s a failure of a Game Master. And in Connor’s first campaign, no less. “Like, Stan for short.” God.

Kara chokes on her cheese cracker.

* * *

Connor balances the d4 on his thumb, then his index finger, and then he passes it to his other hand — and Markus reminds himself that it’s rude to stare.

“You walk out into the rooftop balcony, and immediately, you’re slammed with a bright, stabbing light. When you gather your bearings, you see the pool, and there’s helicopters hovering, making the water swirl and rise like a tsunami. All the lawn chairs and tables are knocked over. You hear shouting and sirens — it’s as overwhelming as a heartbeat.”

“And the snipers,” says Kara.

“Yes, the snipers, on every adjacent roof. Pointed — at him. There he is, at the very edge of the building, about twenty feet away —  Stan —” it’s meant to a dark moment, but Markus accepts the general snickering for what it is — “is holding the little girl, Emma, in his arms. He’s pointing a gun to her head. She’s crying.” He lets it settle. “So you were able to get out of Captain Allen that this deviant is incredibly unstable. He’s already taken out two men — in fact, one of those men is on the ground, injured — and Stan might take this little girl, too.” He leans forward. “What do you do?”

“What — what do I do —  _now?_ ” Connor asks.

“Yeah.” Connor has to stop looking at him like that, or else Markus isn’t going to be able to Game Master efficiently. “Consider this, like, a fight. It isn’t really be a battle or anything, because no one’s actually fighting, but we’re gonna treat it kind of like that for — like, tutorial purposes.”

North squints. “That’s confusing.” He knows. He doesn’t understand that much more than she does. “Your entire method is confusing, and I know for a fact that you’re not going to stick to it.”

“Well, we’ll try.” That’s the point of this, right? He’s just going to try it. God, why did he want to be Game Master in the first place? Probably because he didn’t know Connor would be playing. But — that doesn’t excuse much, either.

“Can I just... keep approaching?” Connor says.

He’ll take it. “Sure. So I’m gonna roll for Stan, now.” Markus does. “Oh, shit.”

“What is it?”

“Twelve, which is plus modifiers. What did you get?”

He looks moderately panicked. “If I got a two, is that bad?”

Well, “You step forward, but Stan makes a ranged attack with his pistol — he shoots straight at K — rolling a four plus five — and K’s armor class happens to be nine.” Connor doesn’t seem to know what that means, “The bullet grazes against your shoulder.”

“Ow,” says Connor. “Or. Can androids feel pain?”

“Fuck, what,” goes Josh.

Markus continues. “Stan is telling you to stay back, and he threatens that if you come any closer — he’ll jump. It’s like he’s about to self-destruct. And we know for sure that he’d bring Emma with him. What’s K gonna do next?” 

“Fucking shoot him, you found a gun,” North says.

“But he’s right at the edge of a building!” Simon argues. 

North groans. “Okay, fine, dude — do, like a perception check, maybe.”

“If you want,” says Markus. “Connor, perception checks are to, like, scope out the things you don’t quite know yet. Roll twenty.”  

He does. “A seventeen?” 

“K looks around, assesses everything in the blink of an eye, and figures, well, he’s got maybe a sixty-seven percent change of getting this down. You need to put the deviant in a position that makes him believe what you’re saying.” 

“You _pulled that number out of your ass_ ,” says North. “You didn’t even roll the d10 for percentage.”

Connor’s gone back to playing with the dice. “I’ll just — K says hi to him. He’s all. Hi, Stan.”

“Stan goes rabid. He doesn’t know how you found out his name.” 

North shakes her head. “You should have shot the bitch.”

“How do you shoot him,” Simon tells her, “if he’s on a ledge? With a child?”

“Well, I know a lot of things about Staniel,” Connor says. More gentle snickering. “I did the whole investigating thing.” 

Markus nods. “That you did.” He’s gotta get all these papers stacked. “Stan asks K if he has a weapon. And you do, in fact, have a gun.” 

“Okay, you’re pulling this _whole thing_ out of your ass,” North protests. “This is only because you and Simon don’t see the merit in shooting this fucker and grabbing the child —”

Kara’s laughing — “How would you grab the child —”

“So what can I do with the gun?” Connor has collected all the dice. He’s juggling them, kind of. “Can I — discard it? Shouls I — roll the die?” He lets go of one. “It’s a fourteen.”

“That’s enough for you to toss the gun aside without him reacting too intensely.”

“Fuck this campaign already,” says North. “I’m fucking — flipping this table.”

“Do I — can K say something else to him? To appease him somehow?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll tell him I’m an android, too. That K knows whatever’s going on with him.” Connor rolls the d20. He’s a quick learner. Markus should probably know that by now. “It’s a four?” 

“He’s gonna fucking shoot you,” says North.

Well, “He doesn’t _shoot_ you, Connor, but — he doesn’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth. And be forewarned that he might not come to trust you very easily.”

“Oh. Oh, then. What — what about the man he shot? The — the — you said there was someone injured. Can I help him?” 

Markus almost forgot he said that. “You can — but Daniel threatens to kill you if you do anything. He gives his warning shot, and — and for a second, the sky screams — red.”

“Emma’s never gonna forget this day,” says Josh. “Yeah. There’s no way this NPC kid is going out — psychologically unscathed. This is terrible.”

“I want to help the man, if it’s allowed,” Connor insists. “He can’t kill K because he’s not alive.” A nice line. Markus might use it. And he hopes North doesn’t joke about it later. “I got a sixteen.”

“That’ll be enough. You use your tie to give the man, like, a tourniquet, and luckily, Stan doesn’t shoot. What now?” 

“K will keep — walking and talking.” Connor’s got the dice in his hand. “Is that — isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in a hostage situation?”

“You’re the detective here.”

“I’ll bring up — him and Emma. From when we got the evidence? Right? How they seem close, probably. Because.” He rolls the d20. “I got a sixteen again?” 

“You’re getting through to him. Little by little. Then suddenly — the helicopters brush by, scattering more furniture and making the pool water go wild — the deviant’s expression gets wilder —”

“Can I — I’ll — make them go away? Like, leave.” 

“If you roll for it.” 

“Um, fourteen.” 

“Why’d you make him roll for it if it’s just for signing the helicopter away?” asks Simon. “How would you fail at signing away a helicopter? Like, it crashes. Or you didn’t flick your wrist right.” 

“Immersion and tutorial purposes,” Markus explains. “K keeps walking closer and closer to the deviant. At your signal, Connor, the helicopter leaves. K returns his attention to Stan.”

“Perception check. Can I do a perception check? Am I supposed to?”

“Well, you can do an investigation check this time. You already know the percentage of how you’ll succeed. It’s only getting there that’s the problem. You don’t really need to, though.” 

“So... what can I —”

“Yeah, keep talking to him,” Kara advises. “Because he’s still got the girl.”

“I tell him — I talk about how he felt like he was going to get replaced. Because of the magazine I found.”

North looks incredulous. “Hey, you know, wouldn’t they be advertising merchandise in _catalogues_ rather than magazines in this universe? What the fuck are you doing, Markus? What the fuck is this?” 

“Stan replies in a shaky, frightened voice. Maybe he’s not as feral as you thought at first glance. Because — he says that he thought that this family needed him, but they didn’t. He was just their toy, to be thrown away whenever it was convenient to them. And he realized that he was more than that. He realized he was _free_. You think he’s going to put down the gun — but he doesn’t. Emma begs and kicks and screams.” Markus takes a breath. “Stan — Stan says that he doesn’t want to want to be thrown away. That’s the thing — he doesn’t want to die. Not if he can help it.” Okay. “Stan demands a car and a safe passage out of Detroit. Only then will he let the girl go. But you know that — this machine has killed people. You know that — that won’t happen. You refuse to let that happen.”

Simon stares. “That’s deep stuff, Markus.”

Thanks. “Now, K. What will you do to reassure him?”

“Tackle him,” says North. “Throw the child. Like — throw it. Then tear the deviant bitch apart.” 

Josh sighs. “He can’t just — attack him. That’s not reassurance.”

“You’re right.” North weighs it. “First, you gotta grab the gun. Shoot to kill. Grab the child. Throw to safety. Tear the deviant motherfucking bitch —”

“North, what the fuck. I meant he has to — keep negotiating. Just keep talking to him. That’s his job, right?”

Simon puts his chin over his palm. “Well, yeah, but he’s going to have to lie to get what he wants. He can’t give Daniel — Staniel a car. All the snipers are at him. K has to be forthright about what’s going to happen, or else the deviant won’t trust him. And he’ll be just as bad as the SWAT guys and Captain Allen.” 

“Yeah, but he’s on their side,” Kara mentions. “He’s already as bad as Captain Allen. He’s _working_ with them. And isn’t the goal to save the girl? To save Emma? I say he does whatever it takes to... achieve that.”

Markus thinks they’ve got it. “So what’s it gonna be, Connor?”

Connor’s digging through his mind. He’s deciding. He’s already put all his dice on the table. “I...” The others encourage him to heed their counsel. “I want to compromise. I’ll tell him that — I can’t give him what he wants, because... that’s not possible. But instead, I’ll say he’ll be safe. And that all I want to do is talk to him.”

North makes a face. “Aw, come on.”

Kara shrugs. “Roll the d20, Connor.” 

“Okay.” He pauses. What is it? What is it? “So, if I get a twenty —”

“Natural twenty,” says Josh.

“That’s —” Simon’s mouth opens and closes — “that’s just —”

There it is. “Stan looks at you — and everything you’ve done that — polluted night — you found out his name, his connections, his motive — you dropped your weapon — you saved a policeman who happens to be here — a fish, too, for that matter — you called off the helicopter — K has done everything  he thinks he can.” Dramatic effect. Just a moment of silence for dramatic effect. He’s got it now. “Staniel drops the gun. He lets Emma run onto the roof, and she drops to her knees by the pool, sobbing. There is so much emotion and K, an android, can’t comprehend it.” Software Instability. As long as the story goes somewhere. “There’s a second of nothing. Stan looks at you. He trusts you.” There. “And then...” Then.

They know what he’s gonna say.

“They kill him.”

Maybe that’ll do it. Yeah. That’ll be enough for now.

* * *

Snack break. Kara’s texting her mom, Simon’s in the bathroom, and Josh is looking for some more food for them to eat.

Then Markus realizes — “Oh, my God. I forgot to make Connor roll for Initiative. And I forgot — shit, I forgot to give you Inspiration for all your — oh. I barely used the d4.”

“It’s — it’s okay,” says Connor. “I don’t really need it.” What is he saying, of course he needs — Markus wants to make this an authentic experience —

“Plus —” North sips her fruit punch — “you made, like, every little fucking thing — an action you had to roll the d20 for. It was weird. Like, the helicopter. Or when Connor said, ‘Hi, Stan, you bitch.’ Like, it doesn’t make any sense. You fucking got shot for like, walking.”  
  
Markus groans. “I just — I just wanted Connor to get the hang of everything. And you sounded like you had fun this whole time.” And if it’s any indication, “I’m not that great of a GM, anyway. We’re switching.”  
  
North puts down her drink. “What — what are you talking about? At least finish this round. You’re fucking superb. Your words are so elegant. You’re very talented, and your voice is so beautiful and smooth. Shut the fuck up.”

All right, then. 

“I think you’re doing great, too,” says Connor. He’s got the dice again. Oh.

North gestures at him. “See? So shut the fuck up, Markus. You’re supreme.”

* * *

Okay. Fine.

Maybe it’ll be fine.

It’s totally fine.

* * *

Kara gauges her options. “So — because I’m just a regular android right now, it feels like I don’t have much to do yet. The things I have to do now are... a wide selection of menial chores.”

“Do the laundry, take out the trash, wash the dishes, then report back to Todd,” Simon recalls. “Right? Yeah. That’s what Markus said.”  
  
“Didn’t he say there was a roomba?” says North. “Turn it on. Robot turning on a robot. No, wait — vore the roomba.”

“Hmm, okay. You know what. I’ll do it. Rolling to vore the roomba.” 

Yeah. North definitely cursed her during the snack break. “I’m gonna pretend that you said ‘turn on’.”

* * *

“Markus, so in this, Simon and North and I are gonna treat you — or, like, Ava — like an NPC?” asks Josh.

“That’s right. Leon, Luv, and Rachael don’t really know much about her, and you’re pretty wary, too, but you’re always open to refugees.”

“Can you really call Ava a refugee?” says Kara. “A refugee of what war? The war for freedom? She just got convicted of murder. Albeit falsely.”

“I speak the most languages,” says Simon, “so — Rachael’s gonna talk to her.”

North sits up. “And Ava’s all, ‘ _Staniel? Is that you?’_ ”

Even Connor’s laughing a little.

Josh snaps his fingers. “And she says, ‘What the fuck, man?’”

“How would — how would Ava know Staniel? Are there Simon clones in this universe?” Markus squints the way North would squint. He can’t quite get it. “And K killed him a while back. Or the SWAT team did. Whichever.”

Simon furrows his eyebrows. “And my character’s a girl? Literally? Rachael?” 

“But Rachael has, like, the — fucking — Simon-Daniel — Staniel vibes. It transcends even universes.” North’s eyes go wide. “Oh, my God, Markus, is that how you got that name? Simon-Daniel?”

“Well —” shit. 

* * *

This is probably — the best he’ll get.  

* * *

“What time is it now?” asks Markus. 

“Four-thirty-two,” Connor informs.  
  
“We’ve been playing for _two hours,_ ” goes Simon. “Dang.”

“We spent a long time looking for the dice because you didn’t say where you put them last time,” says Josh, “and then we finished up making characters, and then when we played we basically went through everyone’s backstory, so, well, yeah.”  
  
Connor puts away his phone. “So... Hank said he’s here.”  
  
“I’ll walk you out then, Connor,” Markus tells him.  
  
“Hank?” says North. “Is that Dream Daddy? Dream Daddy’s name is Hank? Is that short for Henry?”  
  
Kara shakes her head. “North has a crush on your dad, Connor.”  
  
North looks like she’s lounging. “Yeah. We saw him through the window earlier. Tell your dad that your friend thinks that he’s rather attractive.” If she says anything else — if puts her boots up on the table — Markus is gonna — severely reprimand her. Baseball bat be damned.“Hey, Markus, how old is your dad, again? And how old is your brother?”  
  
“Um,” he says, counting, “fifty-seven. And twenty-five. Respectively. Why?”  
  
“It’s a tangent. And also, I just needed some context for this writer-woman character you’ve made up as Ava’s dead mentor. Plus the dead mentor’s son. Because, you know, you’re always self-inserting yourself super obviously when we play D n’ D.”  
  
Does he? “I do not —”  
  
“You know what,” says Josh. “That’s right. You really do do that, Markus. Last time, you were all —”  
  
“Oh, come on,” goes Simon. “Everyone does that. It’s the point of making a character. You bring just enough of yourself into and — it’s fun. It’s fun, guys. Cut him some slack.”  
  
“Well, no matter. Is Professor X gonna play with us again sometime, though?” says North. “That would be fucking crazy.”  
  
Connor must be baffled out of his mind. “She calls Carl Professor X,” Markus tells him. “Because, you know. He’s wheelchair-bound and very intelligent.”  
  
“No, it’s because he calls me Wolverine,” she corrects. “And also, he’s basically bald and sometimes sounds like James McAvoy doing an American accent.”  
  
“I’ve never met Markus’s dad,” Connor says.  
  
“You’ll probably meet Markus’s brother, first,” North tells him. “But don’t trust him too much. He vapes.”

* * *

Why did he do this. He totally forgot. Why did he say he’d do this. Now —

“Hey, son.” Hank claps his hand over Connor’s shoulder. Then he averts his gaze to Markus — and Markus has to pretend that he’s not intimidated in the least — he’s had plenty of practice with North in that regard — “And you must be the infamous Markus. Connor talks about you every once in a while. You do tutoring together, right? How’re you doing?”  
  
“I’m doing — fine.” Sir? Should he say sir? Because he knows Hank Anderson is a policeman and all — Connor said he was a Lieutenant, once, he thinks — and Markus just wants to make the best first impression possible — God, this is the first time he’s meeting his boyfriend’s father — God, boyfriend is a disgusting word —  
  
And he doesn’t look very affected at all. “Huh. What did you kids do all day?”  
  
Did Connor tell him already, or? Is this a test? “Homework, and, uh, Tabletop RPG,” says Markus. Wait, no. That’s not really — he might not get it. “Dungeons and dragons.” He still feels like he has to call him a sir.  
  
“Dungeons and _dragons?_ ” Hank whistles. “Wow. You kids still play that? God, I — I did that shit back in college. That’s fucking crazy. Jesus.” Okay, good. Good. Markus thinks that this is going well. Okay. Cool, okay. “How long have you two known each other? How long has —” he just points. Markus isn’t sure what the pointing means —  
  
Connor steps in. “It’s been a while. Since Junior Year. Uh — Markus and I are really good friends. We’re really good friends. And the other — the other — kids, they’re really nice.”  
  
What? What, why would he say — oh, yeah. “Yeah.” Connor didn’t tell Hank about them yet. “Yeah, we’re all… friends.”  
  
Hank looks at them. “Well, good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, to the D&D pros: adjust. adjust my lingo please. You all are beautiful 
> 
> Markus loves attention what an emoteen 
> 
> I need to edit this


	3. Chaotic Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is supposed to be my cool-down fic and I’m already in too deep

“Traci just texted me back,” North says, hanging upside down on the living room’s sofa, “and she says she’s gonna be on the night watch now? So she’s not gonna be picking me up any time soon.” Slowly, she’s sliding, lower and lower. Markus has the decency to feel alarmed. “You know what that means, bitch.”

It means — oh, shit, his phone is buzzing. He grabs it. “What — what  _does_ it mean?”

“Sleepover!” Oh, okay, sweet. She falls off of the couch and slings her arms over his shoulders for leverage. “Where’s my stuff?”

Oh, shit. Six missed messages. “Your stuff’s all in the — in the duffel bag up in one of the guest rooms. The one with the — the one with the green walls, I think.”

“Green walls. Got it.”

Oh, shit, oh shit — they’re from Connor — “Hey, uh —”

“Where’s your dad?” she asks. She’s sitting on the floor, beside him. “I wanna say hi to my new landlord.”

“I told you, he’s still at the show he’s doing —” shit, shit, these were from an hour ago, _shit_ — he hopes Connor doesn’t think he’s — _shit_ — “North, um, I —” he should just call him —

She’s squinting towards his phone now. “ _Fuck!_ Dude, you’ve got — look at all this. This is fucking atrocious. Oh, my God.” And — she grabs it from him — thumbs moving at rapid speed — “Your name for your boyfriend is so fucking boring—”

“Oh, my God — _North_ — that — _stop_ —” North pushes away his face — Markus shouldn't have given her the password —

Then she hands it back like nothing. “He’ll know it’s me.”

He’s got too many tests next week for this. “Still. You’re — still.” It’s — it’s ten o’clock. They should be — he doesn’t know — doing something more productive than — watching — movies or something — God, they don’t have a test or anything on _Monday_ , right?

She better not have sent him any pictures.

 

 **10:22 p.m.** **  
**  
**Messages to Connor Anderson** **  
****  
****  
****Connor:**  I’m really sorry

 

 **Connor:** I really should have told him about it right then and there, but I panicked

**Sent at 6:44 p.m.**

 

 **Connor:** Hank is just a very old-fashioned individual, you know

 

 **Connor:**  He won’t even buy a roomba

**Sent at 7:04 p.m.**

 

 **Connor:** Can we talk about it maybe?

**Sent at 8:13 p.m.**

 

 **Connor:** Are you mad at me?

**Sent at 9:13 p.m.**

 

 

Oh, God. Oh, God. No. No, he’s not. He’s never — he’s not mad. He’ll never be actually  _mad_. And Connor doesn’t normally — that’s not — literally — he doesn’t he’s — Markus is — oh, God. And what did North —

  
  
**You:** bby errithin is fucken  
smooth and you are luved uwu  
rawr ex dee

 

He doesn’t know what he was expecting.

“Did he read it yet?” she’s asking.

 

 **You:** That was North

 **You:** Ignoe that

 **You:** Is it okay if I facetime you right now

 

 

Because face-to-face is better. North will just — North.

 

 **  
****Connor is typing…** **  
****  
****Connor is deleting…** **  
****  
****Connor is typing…** **  
****  
****Connor:** Okay

 

So he does.

“Can I hold it?” says North. Despite his best judgement, he lets her. The phone songs its FaceTime jingle. “Hey, dreamboat. Join my fucking cult.”

On the screen, Connor’s forehead is wrinkled. He’s probably been throwing his coin around — and he flicks it offscreen. “Um — I — hello, North.” His voice crackles through the speaker — he’s so — holy shit. “I should have known you were here. You did — respond to my messages.”

“I did,” she says, grinning. “My sister abandoned me, so I’m sticking it with him.” She nudges him.

Markus moves her hand and makes sure he’s in frame. “I guess I’m him.”

Connor’s laughing, kind of. Markus thinks his chest’s going to explode. “Where are you two?”

North figures it out. “Some room in Markus’s house that has a TV, which could be anywhere.”

“You have... a big house, Markus,” says Connor, looking off to the side.

“Yeah.” He does. “I guess I do. Um — where are _you_ , Connor?”

“My room.” Okay. He’s drinking out of something now — it’s a water bottle. “And — I — I didn’t know you had a sister, North.”

“Really? Well, I do. And she left me for fucking dead.”

“Is she working late, perhaps?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she’s a stripper.” Then Connor chokes on his water. “I’m fucking withyou, man. Fucking with you. She’s a fucking veterinarian. But the blue hair throws you off. And the stripper pole in our living room, too.” God save them all. “Markus wishes he could trade Leo for Traci.”

Sometimes. But that was in eighth grade. “No, I don’t.”

“Not because of the stripper pole, though. He’s not that kind of man.”

Connor puts the water bottle down. He’s wiping his wrist across his mouth. “Who’s Leo?”

“That’s my brother,” Markus says.

“Oh. Right, I — I think I remember you mentioning him earlier. I’ve never seen him.”

“We don’t keep much pictures in the house, either, so.”

North cracks her knuckles. “Yeah. But Leo’s _fucking hot_. In like a _bothered_ kind of way.”

“Does he — look like you, Markus?” Connor wants to know. North starts laughing.

“Well,” says Markus, “he’s kind of my half-brother? So. I guess the resemblance doesn’t carry too far.”

North shrugs. “I mean, I think you guys kind of look alike. Like, you can tell you’re related.” She goes on to pop her ankles. Markus wonders if that’s healthy. “You’ll get to see him next time around.”

Connor seems surprised. “Next time around.”

“Fuck yeah, next time around. You’re sticking to the campaign, right? K’s got good fucking food. He fucking decimated Staniel. We got to figure out what happens to him next.”

He blinks. “Of — of course.”

“Glad to hear it.” North stretches. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth. I’m coming back. No — no phone fucking while I’m gone, you hear?”

“You’re gross,” Markus lets her know.

“I could poke out your beautiful eyeballs if I wanted to. For the freshmen.” She laughs, hands Markus the phone, and leaves.

So Markus comes back to Connor. He looks very amused. “She’s absolutely — she’s. She’s — North.”

“I like her,” Connor says. “She’s very pretty.”

The quiet settles.

Markus tries to shove it away. “You wanted to talk?”

“Oh. Right.” Connor shakes his head out. “Yes. Sorry for all the spam — I was being stupid —”

“No, no, it’s okay.” He might have done the same, in Connor’s position. “Are you okay?”

“Um, yes. Yes, I think it’s better now.”

“So you told him?”

He breathes. “No.” Markus just kind of — “I know. I know I should.”

These kinds of things take time. Markus knows that. But still. “Is he — is Hank — homophobic or anything like that, or —”

“No! No, nothing like that. Not in the least.” Connor props his phone down on something. There’s a tangle of background noise. “It’s just…”

It’s okay. “Yeah?” Why does Markus want to — pressure him so much into this? Why does — what’s it all about? What’s this for? Still. Still, it’s all — yeah.

“He doesn’t want me _dating_ anyone yet, per say, but, well.” Agreed. “I know that — nothing bad will happen if I tell him we’re — together.” Together. Yeah, that’s one way to put it. “But I — I don’t want his opinion of me to change.”

“Well, he… loves you. Like everyone does. That’s not going to change.” Markus — shouldn’t be meddling — but he’s meddling — “He’s your dad, Connor. I mean?”

He thinks about it. “I suppose... I’m scared that nothing will be the way it was before. I — I disobeyed him. A bit.”

Maybe he should drop it. “Oh.” Maybe Connor can — something. They can something.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m sorry to bother you —”

“Connor, you’re never — you’re not going to — _bother_ me —”

“— it’s... I’m still working on it.”

“Yeah.” 

That’s okay. It’ll be — it’ll work out. Markus just needs to stop worrying about something that really isn’t his to worry about.

“What — what have you been looking at this whole time?”

“What?”

“You’re looking at something.”

God, he’s gorgeous. That itself is clear. “What — what do you mean I’m looking at something? You, Connor. I’m looking at you. Always looking at you.” He’s gorgeous.

This — this is Markus’s weakness. This is Connor’s critical twenty. The way he tilts his head like that — the way he looks all — Jesus, oh, God, Markus is gonna die — Connor picks up his phone — “Then how do you study? How do you see where you’re walking? That’s not — that isn’t good etiquette.”

“I — I — I _like_ you,” Markus says. “Is that etiquette enough?”

And he smiles. Markus is so, so dead right now. “Hardly.”

* * *

“Markus?” Oh. Carl must have come back from his show. “Markus. It’s midnight. What are you doing in the kitchen?”

North emerges from the pantry with six assorted trail mix bars. “It’s Professor X!”

“And the Wolverine. I’m glad to see you.” He’s smiling. “Now — do you know what my son’s been doing up so late? The both of you should be asleep.”

“Like, we were watching movies earlier, but then we realized we had a presentation due on Monday. And then — yeah.” She tears open one of the bars and returns to the pantry. “The grind never stops.” 

“You know how we are at time-management, Carl,”  Markus says. The coffee machine is whirring.

“That’s no excuse.” He joins Markus at the counter. “Is your brother home?” His voice is low. “He’s not answering any of my calls.”

“I — I don’t know where he is.”

He sighs. “Well. That’s — fine, Markus.” It doesn’t sound fine — like, should he be _concerned_ , or — _Carl_ looks concerned —what’s — “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.” Whenever Carl seems worried, Markus gets worried — it’s just a thing — it doesn’t matter what it’s about — “Just tell me — tell me about something else. Tell me — it’s Saturday. How was campaign?” 

The coffee’s finished brewing. “Well — we had the normal group. And... Connor came, too.”

“Connor. That’s a new one.” He’s trying to recognize the name. “Connor! That — that boy you’re seeing.”

There’s a lot of ways to put it. “Yeah.”

“We were talking to him earlier,” goes North. He kind of forgot she was there — had she been listening to them talk about — “But then his dog started barking, so we hung up.”

“Then I just missed him, it looks like.” Carl doesn’t want him to worry. So... he won’t. “Let me meet him next week, all right, Markus?”

And he wonders how that’ll go. “All right.”

* * *

“I’m just — I’m really stressed about my grades,” Simon tells him. They swerve past an oncoming swarm of sixth graders. The D Hall houses a lot of the middle school kids. North likes to joke about it. “Because I did a ton of messing around back in freshman year —” 

Messing around? Simon is the most sensible person he knows. “No, you didn’t. You were, like — the greatest. You take the best notes ever.”

He sputters, kind of, like an old car. “Well — I can't get into the top ten, and I really want to get into the top ten, Markus. At least for Senior Year. Plus — I wanna get into a good school and everything — God, this is all —” 

“You’re in the top ten _percent_ ,” says Markus. “That’s really good. Like, _really_ good. You don’t have to worry about anything.” Markus doesn’t want him all flustered like this. “Everything’s going to be fine, Simon.”

“Well —” he pauses. “Oh, my God, sorry I just saw — Daniel walking by, and it felt all Twilight Zone, I don’t know —”

“Staniel? Staniel! Where?” He turns around — is he that blonde guy over there — he’s out of earshot — “Is he just walking around the school like us, or is he actively looking for you?” He feels like he’s talking like North. But Simon seems unnecessarily sad this morning, and all their collective nonsense usually cheers him up, so. He’ll have to make up for her current absence. (She’s doing office hours somewhere. Or so she claims.)

Simon grins. Okay, there it is. That’s good. “Markus, _stop._ ” And he rams his shoulder into Markus’s — he’s never been strong enough to deal any damage, but it’s just a thing they do — “I’m… I’m talking about myself too much.”

“Well, it’s nice to listen to you talk, Simon.” Josh keeps ragging on him about vegetarianism and North is North. 

“No. No. Shut up, Markus. Talk about yourself. Quick, we’ve got, like, seven minutes until eight forty-five.”

“I don’t have much to say,” Markus admits.

He groans. “Oh, come on. Of _course_ you do. We all have stupid problems. Not that you’re stupid.” They’ve taken a particularly slow pace. The middle schoolers are looking at them all weird. “You know what I mean, Markus.”

“Well, I don’t know,” he says, shrugging. “Like — hey, do you want to be Game Master this Saturday? We can do the switching thing. I’ll tell the group chat.” He's gotta add Connor to the group chat. Or he should make a new group chat. He’ll sort it out eventually.

“I — I mean, uh — sure, if you want me to. But now you’re dodging about — talking about yourself. Just go. Say — anything. Simon says say something.”

“Oh, my God.” Markus laughs. “You had to do me like that.” 

It’s been their tradition since the third grade. “Now you have to tell me something. And I’m gonna — I’m gonna listen.”

“Fine. Fine, um...” What’s there to say? “I guess my dad’s getting all worked up about Leo again? And you know how I get when Carl’s worked up. I’m all — I don’t know. It’s not that big of a deal. It just — it happens. And we’ll all work it out.” Because it happens.

“Wow. It _is_ a big deal. Stop — downsizing it. That sucks, Markus. That sucks more than my grades.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” 

“Family stuff — is — I don’t even know. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Me neither,” Markus says. “But we do know about grades. And — yeah. Yeah, it’s — it’s a drag sometimes. It’s good to — think about it, I guess. But don’t beat yourself up, Simon. You really are doing good.” He is. “You’re probably the most sensible, hard-working person I — I know.”

Simon pulls the sleeves of his blazer over his knuckles. “Markus, um, can I have a hug, please?”

 Oh, yeah. “You don’t even have to ask anymore.” They hug right there in the D hall. The middle schoolers can just — yeah. 

* * *

 “So Simon’s gonna be Game-Master-ing on Saturday?” Josh glides over in his chair. (The computer lab they have Calculus in has those swirly ones. They haven’t been replaced yet, to everyone’s shock.) 

“How’d you find that out?” Markus organizes all his pencils. He should probably be going ahead in his homework, like the teacher said, but this is productivity enough. “I literally talked to him about it, like, twenty minutes ago.” 

“He texted me,” Josh says. “He was also saying that you had family problems? I don’t know the context, but, like fuck, it’s cause for some — I don’t know, man. I know you hate talking about that kind of shit, because — I don’t know. You’re just like that.”

Oh. “Did he — tell you not to tell me that he told you that I was having — apparently — family problems?” 

“You make it sound complicated.”

How old is this pencil? It’s tiny and stubbed. “It’s not a big deal. It’s seriously not. You guys have other things to deal with besides — whatever.” He should probably throw this one away.

“Well, I’m here if you need me.”

Or maybe he can — “Do — do you want a baby pencil?” He holds the tiny and stubbed pencil between his fingers.

He’s probably comparing the pros and cons of owning a baby pencil. “Yeah. Yeah, I want a baby pencil. I’ll make a baby pencil army. Or — no, not an army. War is not the way to go. I’m gonna adopt all your fucking baby pencils. Baby pencil squad.” 

And they stare at each other, and then they laugh, and Markus immediately feels better about whatever he was feeling bad about.

* * *

“Hold this for me?” Markus takes her notebooks. North pulls up at her uniform knee socks. The soles have gone dark bruise blue from her penny loafers. “Aw, fuck.” She stands.

“What?” He hands her stuff back to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t bring any fucking lunch money,” she says, “and I didn’t bring my fucking lunch box.” She kicks one of the lower lockers. Poor underclassman. “Now I can’t get any fucking chicken strips. And they make _brownies_ on Monday! Goddammit.”

Markus has plenty of cash with him. He’s got his wallet right inside his blazer — “Oh, well, you can —”

“No, you fucking cannot.” She holds up her palm. All her nails are chipped. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just — mooch off of Simon or even Josh or something.”

“Don’t — mooch off of Simon or Josh.” Simon is burdened enough (he even needed a hug) and Josh isn’t much in the mood. “I have —”

“Markus — no. It’s cool. It’s totally cool.” She huffs out her breath and mutters something illegible — “Hey, where’s your boyfriend’s locker at?”

Disgusting word. Disgusting word. What’s she planning this time? “Down the, uh, B Hall. Why?”

“He never sits with us at lunch,” she says. “And he’s got Comp Sci with us later, so — you know he’s got this lunch period. Make him join my cult, Markus.”

What cult? Where is it? And where’s Markus’s Computer Science binder — and — and are they _supposed_ to sit with each other at lunch? Oh, God. “He probably doesn’t like sitting outside.”

“Well, he should try it out first.” She jams her elbow into his side. “Go grab him. I’ll just meet you there. If I’m not gonna be getting brownies today, at least I’ll have some eye candy.”

Eye candy. “He said you were pretty, while you were off brushing your teeth on Saturday, did you know that?”

“Did he now?”

* * *

It’s late enough that the halls are lagging and bare. Class has already begun in most of the adjacent rooms, and only a few pockets of students stop at their lockers. And — there’s a long, swiveling line of the fourth graders, probably — Josh’s mom teaches that class, and she’s right at the head of it — waving at Markus — and Connor follows behind him with his brown paper bag. He hears his footsteps. “Markus, your friends are rather...” 

Excitable? Eccentric? “I know they’re a bit much. It’s mostly during D n’ D. They’re different in real life. Not to say D n’ D isn’t real life, but they’re different —”

Connor clears his throat. “I was going to say that — they’re kind.” Oh. Now Markus feels kind of bad. He feels like Simon is looking at him all disappointedly and Josh has his nose scrunched up and North is squinting. “You don’t have to... do this.” 

“Why not?” Markus says. “You’re great, Connor, and we all see that.” Connor isn’t saying anything. Oh, God. “Hey — where do you normally sit for lunch, anyway? And you’ve got A Lunch every day?”

There’s a general rustling. “I do. I just sit — wherever there’s not many people.”

Markus turns to look at him. “Where’s that?”

Connor stops. He’s adjusting his tie.

They’re right by the library, in that pocket of bulletin boards and rusty lockers under the stairwell. No one is here, and that’s probably not much better than if everyone was.

“The parking lot.” He winces. “I know —  _precisely_  what you’re going to say — and — and I’ll have you know, it’s not a bad thing —”

 _That’s_ why he doesn’t see him much at A lunch? “What? That’s terrible. That’s terrible, why would — oh, my God, I’m sorry. I should have —”

“No, Markus, it’s — it’s probably better, in fact, because I — I don’t want to intrude on your friends. On Saturday, I already —”

This is what — “You’re not — intruding. Not at all. They think you’re really — chill and stuff.” That’s the literally worst thing he can say. 

“I don’t think this is the best idea. I’m sorry. I should probably just —”

What if — yeah. Last resort. Okay. Okay, this’ll works. Markus takes his hand. “Yeah. No. See? Now you’re not intruding, because — because we’re totally — linked. We’re basically the same entity. Yeah? Now you’re gonna eat lunch with us. And you’re always gonna be — eating lunch with us.” This is stupid. But nothing’s there to tell him it is. There are no rules for — this kind of stuff. 

Connor looks down. “Oh, my God.” He covers his face. (God, his hair. His hair is so nice. And his skin looks so smooth.) Markus is still holding onto his hand. “Oh, my God.” 

“Can — can — are you — are we gonna just — are we gonna go now? Because I’m — I’m hungry. And — and if someone, like, a teacher shows up and sees us I’ll be really embarrassed and so will you —”

“I’m _already_ embarrassed,” Connor says, muffled. He presses Markus’s hand to his cheek. “You’re — an idiot. You’re an idiot, Markus.” 

“Okay.” He can live with that.

* * *

 It’s really sunny out. When is it not sunny out? That makes the whole ambiance relaxing — but he’s inclined to remember that once, in their sophomore year, all the birds would shit everything — they’ve installed those spike-things on the trees —

Josh spots him first. “I swear to God, I thought you were fucking dead. I was gonna make a search party.”

“Markus!” And there’s Simon. “What took you so long?”  
  
He grins. “Did you save my spot?”  
  
“I mean — yeah! Oh, my God, I have to show you something Josh found in —” Markus sits across from him, and Connor follows suit. “Oh. Oh, hi, Connor. What’s — what’s up?”

They are subsequently greeted by the table.  
  
Connor waves.

(The two of them holding aren’t hands anymore. Markus kind of wants to.)  
  
“And Kara’s here, too.” North’s got a brownie. It’s probably Simon’s. “Along with Luther — and, uh —”  
  
“Jerry.”  
  
“Jerry! He’s a fucking — he’s a fucking beast in Government and Economics who I thought had glasses,” she says.  “They’re… I — I don’t know the nature of your relationship. I don’t know the nature of any of our fucking relationships.”

“Luther and I are — oh, my God, I don’t really know,” Kara concedes. “What are we, Luther?”

“Alice’s parents,” says Luther, straightforward. “That’s probably it.”

Kara accepts it. “I mean, yeah. Plus — we all live with Rose, you know? By that I mean — me and Luther and Alice. Jerry’s — Jerry’s our friend. He’s awesome.”

“I’m their friend,” says Jerry.

North clicks her tongue. She takes off her blazer and folds the sleeves of her blouse. “That’s fucking wholesome.”

Connor sits closer to Markus. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less D&D stuff in this one, more unabashed teen bullshit
> 
> [Ask me stuff about this AU on tumblr! Look at this seamless advertising!](https://kaulayauwrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Have an awesome week


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